Friday, we left volunteering at Saddle Light Center, a therapeutic horse back riding organization, at 7:30pm. We were scheduled to run three miles but felt it was too late, so we decided it would be best to mix it with our Sunday’s eight mile run. Saturday afternoon I went and bought a new pair of running shoes to replace my worn out ones. My old Glycerin 5 shoes started to make a squeaking sound and were pretty cashed. Don’t read too much into this but we’ve both put 355 miles on our shoes just training for the marathon and it’s suggested that you replace your shoes every 300-500 miles. I went with the Glycerin 6 but within the first 3 miles of Sunday’s run I discovered they had a more defined arch which gave a shoelace like feeling right at the arch of my foot. Since we were exactly a week away from the marathon, we thought it was best to stop the run and go replace them. I ended up getting the Defyance which is a bit lighter but still a neutral shoe.

Laura had bought a new pair of shoes prior to the marathon but they got stolen at the gym. So she ran in her old shoes which easily had well over 500 miles, plus were a few years old – just goes to show how strong of a runner she is! She finally replaced her running shoes on week 6 and will need to replace them before the next marathon. We have a love/hate relationship with buying gear. We always seemed to get over whelmed by what is worth buying and what is not. I usually stick to a few simple guidelines (i.e. what Laura will allow me to get away with) but really in the end, it takes experience to know exactly what works and what doesn’t.